LETTERS

Leave the trees alone

Re the editorials on Little Rock’s tree-cutting: Yeah! Urban planners have had “The Answer” for our downtown district many times before, and before that, and before that. Let Little Rock be Little Rock. Leave our trees alone.

Maybe the reason urban planning has to be redone is because of a lack of oxygen in the area of all those baking office buildings.

CAROL MOSELEY Mabelvale

Let city continue cuts

Let the trees on Main Street go peacefully. Little Rock has a fully qualified urban arborist department. My understanding is that most of those trees are poorly sited and ailing. They do not have sufficient light, soil or water and need heavy pruning. They are also of a fast-growing, short-lived species of oak not well-suited for their locations.

I think replacing them with trees better suited is a wonderful move for our city. When those trees were planted, Little Rock did not have a good urban forestry program. Let progress continue.

GALE STEWART Little Rock

Symbology of a myth

I was surprised by the overt religiousness of this newspaper’s recent editorial titled “Symbols do matter.” The editorial was in regard to the city of Harrison’s effort to distance itself from some connections with racists that it had in the past. I believe the editorial’s claim that mankind’s “condition” of imperfection is Original Sinis merely part of a religious myth; our imperfection is only the result of our being part of the natural world. No living thing is perfect.

Since the writer thinks Harrison should leave its divisive and destructive past behind it, why doesn’t he leave the old divisive and destructive myths of supranaturalism behind? I believe “The Book,” as it was called in this editorial, is unquestionably one of the most divisive and destructive matters ever introduced and promulgated.

Reading editorials such as that one sets me back in my chair a little as I am reminded of how far our society still has to go in overcoming the religious myths of the past. Surely this newspaper’s editors know that “The Book” is myth, and that most of their readership are supranaturalists of the Christian religion.

It seems there is a lack of integrity at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and that causes me to have a lack of trust when reading the paper. The editors should consider that some readers are not bound by a religious past; some of us are freethinkers. How many of us does there have to be for the newspaper to make complete sense?

CARL E. HALDEMAN Fayetteville

Escape environment

We are finally widening Interstate 40 to six lanes between Conway and Little Rock. My guess is that we may not need the expanded capacity very long. I’m expecting an influx of people moving back to Little Rock from Conway as they try to escape white-collar crime.

HOWARD HAWES Little Rock

Profiles in cowardice

Hypocrisy at its finest. You printed an editorial citing John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, and use the same space to attack Sen. Mark Pryor for some relatively harmless comments as to whether his senatorial opponent’s military record should elevate his electable status.

Let me preface by saying I will not be voting for Pryor.

No, my problem is that your editorial, which went unsigned with no one apparently having the guts to attach a byline, basically attempts to decide this important race on one Pryor interview.

I wonder if the Hussmans and Greenbergs of the journalism world went down and asked Bob in the print shop, Betty in graphics, Joe my carrier or any other staff member if they minded their voices being heard in a boldfaced political endorsement for one candidate and a body slam on another.

Like him or not, Mark Pryor had the fortitude to put his name to his commentary. That may not be a“Profile in Courage,” but I believe your editorial/attack piece won’t ever be accused of that, either.

ANTHONY LLOYD Hot Springs

Editor’s note: The editorials in the Democrat-Gazette express the opinion of the newspaper as an institution, and the editor of the editorial page is identified daily-Paul Greenberg. As is the publisher, Walter E. Hussman, Jr.

Democracy outdated

Allow me to be the first to congratulate President Koch on his recent purchase of the U.S. presidency. Let me digress.

As a small-time cat farmer here in west Little Rock, I spend my days herding cats as a part of the “vast liberal conspiracy” we have heard about.

I further congratulate the mostly Republican-appointed Supreme Court for its recent decisions regarding corporations and, now, individual contributions to campaigns.

I welcome the changes that will come. I have grown tired of democracy as we have known it and want to improve it with a very heavy dose of self-righteous, fundamentalist, lockstep money-rules mindset.

Soon, we no longer will need to express or vote for leaders. Very soon it will become known even to the lowliest cat farmer that “all are equal, but some are more equal than others. ” (Sorry, George O.) STEVE GIBSON Little Rock

No curl, guaranteed!

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Arkansas Online app has finally come into its own. It is free with your paid paper edition, and it works.

The pages don’t curl, the zoom feature gives you larger print, and there’s no ink stain on your fingers.

Try it and smile a lot more.

BOB CUNNINGHAM Hot Springs Village